These funds are in addition to a Community Development Block Grant from the City of Duluth, an large anonymous donation, and money the staff helped raise.

All donations combined total more than $700K.

The executive director says construction will begin this spring and will be complete by the end of the summer.

"The theory is, the new kitchen we built and then when its ready we'll shut down the old one and start the new one. So there might be a little lag and we'll serve some way during that period but it will be a very short period when we can't just use our kitchen to serve so. Because, we won't let people go at any period of time without food," David Benson, Exec. Dir. Damiano Center, said.

The soup kitchen served more than 120 thousand meals in 2012.

Benson says after the renovation, staff employees plan to serve twice as many people.